


In the Winds of Change

by katayla



Category: The Outlaws of Sherwood - Robin McKinley
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A closer look at Cecily and her choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Winds of Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



"Sess!"

It was Will's voice now. Cecily pressed back against the tree. It was easy to escape her maid, but Will knew her hiding places.

"Cecily!"

He was coming closer. She glanced upward. Could she climb any higher? She was just about to reach for the branch above her, when she heard a noise below her.

"Father is looking for you." Will gazed up at her.

"I know."

"He's angry."

Cecily sighed. "So am I."

"You can't climb trees forever." Will smiled at her, as if it were a joke, like it was one of the games they used to play.

"It's not a question of forever, but of at all."

Will wore one of his new scarlet tunics and Cecily knew he wouldn't come after her. She sat down on the branch and her feet dangled over his head.

"You're near thirteen. It isn't unreasonable for him to wish you to stay inside, to learn how to sew and manage a household."

Cecily swallowed. It wasn't the lessons she objected to. It was how he kept her inside all the time now. This last day Marian had visited, Cecily had not seen her except for greetings and farewells. And how sometimes he looked at her and she could see him envisioning her as the perfect Norman wife. Bad enough that he gave into the Normans at every turn. Now, he looked at her as if she were a new commodity. She wished Will could see that.

"Don't you ever want to just . . . leave?" Cecily asked.

"And where would you go?"

Cecily shook her head and slid down the tree. "That's the problem, isn't it?"

_____

 

When Sir Aubrey looked at her, Cecily shuddered. He was nearly fifty and had just become a widower for the second time. And everyone said he wouldn't stay unmarried for long. The first few times he glanced her way, Cecily told herself that he was looking at all the unmarried ladies. And then, that it was just her imagination that he looked at her more often than any other girl.

But then he started visiting. And having long conversations with her father. And she knew. So when her father told her that the marriage had been arranged, she was prepared. She said nothing, but nodded and he was pleased.

They would be Normans now. That's how he saw it. And all it took was the price of one daughter.

After her father had told her how proud he was of her, Cecily slipped outside. It had been years since she had been able to do that. He had kept too close an eye on her, but now, she supposed, she had fulfilled her purpose.

She put her hand on a tree and looked up.

"Are you going to do it?"

She had thought Will was following her.

"My skirts are too bulky for climbing."

Will put his hand on her shoulder. "Sess, I didn't know what he was up to."

"Really?"

Will flushed. "I hoped--"

"So did I." Cecily looked down at her feet. "It wasn't unexpected."

"Cecily--the Normans, they _can't_ have everything they want."

"No. Just everything that is Father's to give away."

_____

Cecily had been disappointed that Will hadn't know her better, that he expected her to go along with their father, but now, it turned out that she hadn't known him well enough either. She had meant to talk to him. She'd heard him talking about Robin Hood in hushed whispers and done her best to pick up what pieces of information she could.

And she planned what she would say to Will to convince him to take her with him. She was a good shot and he couldn't abandon her. But he did. She had played the part too well and he, like, everyone else, thought she would go along with the wedding. That she would wake up tomorrow and descend from her room, a willing, if not happy, bride.

How could she _ever_ marry Sir Aubrey?

That night, she listened carefully as she locked the door. The bolt slid shut and she let out a long sigh. They could not force her to come out.  
_____

There was no where else to go. No other choice. She couldn't marry Sir Aubrey and she couldn't stay here. Cecily looked at herself in the mirror and touched her hair and winced. It wasn't a very good haircut. And her clothes were too big. But her hat would cover her hair and the clothes did the trick. She looked like a boy.

She didn't know enough about what was ahead of her. That had stopped her from leaving before. If only Will had taken her with him, then . . . but Cecily shook her head. It was this or Sir Aubrey or the watch tower.

And she could shoot. She knew enough to know that archery was a skill the outlaws valued. She would prove herself and have a place to stay.  
_____

"Cecily."

She loved how Little John said her name. He put a little pause between the syllables, like she was Cecil and Cecily both to him, like there was no difference. She was glad. Once, she was glad to lose Cecily, but now she thought she would like to keep that name. And yet she would not lose Cecil, the acceptance he had brought her.

He slipped his arm around her and pulled her close. It was late. They and their friends had stayed up celebrating the new shape of their futures, that they had futures at all, but the room had begun to empty. 

"Don't hurt your side," she said, for he had been careful to choose her left side, which put her against his right.

He ignored her, as he always did, when she said something he didn't wish to hear.

"I had planned to ask you to slip away," Little John said. "But if we are not to die on the morrow--"

"Then it changes nothing." She reached up to touch his face and he closed his eyes and pressed his cheek into her hand.

"Alan insisted on marrying Marjorie. Did you know that? It's how Friar Tuck become involved in all of this."

"Yes, and I know what you said about that, too." It was another reason she had kept silent. Everyone said that Little John had not sympathetic to Alan's story.

He grimaced. "I perhaps understand a little more now. And Friar Tuck is here."

"Friar Tuck has left for bed and I--I would not be parted from you."

"We will have time yet."

She smiled up at him. "And we wasted enough of it."

"Cecily, you are--"

"An outlaw and a Saxon, just like you."

And she took his hand and led him off. She was a Saxon and, perhaps, soon, she would be a Saxon bride. But, for tonight, she would simply be Cecily, who chose a life for herself.


End file.
